{"id":22057,"date":"2025-03-18T08:00:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T07:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=22057"},"modified":"2025-03-18T14:01:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T13:01:56","slug":"luke-131-9-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/luke-131-9-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke 13:1-9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Third Sunday in Lent, 3\/23\/25<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sermon on Luke 13:1-9, by The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills<\/p>\n

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.\u00a0<\/em>2<\/sup><\/em>He asked them, \u2018Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?\u00a0<\/em>3<\/sup><\/em>No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.\u00a0<\/em>4<\/sup><\/em>Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them\u2014do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?\u00a0<\/em>5<\/sup><\/em>No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

6<\/em>\u00a0Then he told this parable: \u2018A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.\u00a0<\/em>7<\/sup><\/em>So he said to the gardener, \u201cSee here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>8<\/sup><\/em>He replied, \u201cSir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it.\u00a0<\/em>9<\/sup><\/em>If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.\u201d\u00a0 (NRSV).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Amen. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well there is nothing that grabs our attention like a \u201cspecial news bulletin\u201d on the radio or TV, or an urgent \u201cpush-alert\u201d dinging on our phone, or the sound of a fire truck or ambulance siren growing closer and louder.\u00a0 They rouse us from our slumber, they wake us up to an unexpected crisis, and they force us to respond in ways that determine our future.\u00a0 About a decade ago, on a beautiful evening, Kathleen and I were visiting the home of a worshipper here at Trinity, when the carbon monoxide detector in her apartment starting going off, a talking alarm, no less, telling us: \u201cWarning, Carbon monoxide detected!\u201d\u00a0 And how did we react?\u00a0 We took out the batteries and turned it off, convinced on a beautiful night that that message was not for us, that there was nothing to worry about.\u00a0 Our complacency was a big mistake, a big disaster, that led to multiple ER visits that night.\u00a0 Today on this Third Sunday in Lent, in the midst of these forty days to be roused from our complacency and return to the Lord our God, we are alerted today to wake up to the disaster of our sin, and to return to the arms of our loving Heavenly Father. In fact it is Jesus who sounds the alarm about how precarious our situation is.\u00a0 He alerts us to the emergency: that because we are so fragile, because we are so vulnerable–to repent before this brief candle of our little life is blown out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the midst of the disasters and violence that have scarred us over these last years\u2014from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine to the poor man in Waterbury cruelly locked away by his family for two decades\u2014Jesus brings up in conversation today a couple of sobering headlines from the Jerusalem newspapers that everyone would have been talking about.\u00a0 This is Jesus talking with his disciples about current events around the watercooler!\u00a0 He begins by saying, \u201cDid you hear about the slaying of the Galilean pilgrims, the worshipers who had come to Jerusalem to pray, only to have been killed by Pontius Pilate, to have had their own blood mixed in with the offerings they brought?\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a terrible story of faithful folks killed while they worshipped God, it reminds us of the attack on worshippers several years ago at the Tree of Life Synagogue, one more instance of evil and unjust violence, and one that our fellow Christians around the world also experience every day–innocent blood shed for no reason by evil idolatrous people–it\u2019s no wonder people talked about it.<\/p>\n

But perhaps Jesus also sees in this disaster a foretaste of what will happen to him this Holy Week, of how he too will suffer under Pontius Pilate, of how he, a perfectly innocent man, will be made to suffer, and of how his blood will be mingled with every drop of blood shed unjustly and cruelly on our streets, and all around this world.\u00a0 Jesus knows that as the beloved Son of God he will become an offering for all the sins of the world, he knows he will die for you, take your death upon him, and that his own precious blood will be shed under Pontius Pilate, he will suffer death and be buried–just like these poor nameless victims from Jerusalem, and just like the innocent victims we know and love.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And if that\u2019s not enough disasters for us this morning, Jesus continues, \u201cDid you also hear about that tower of Siloam collapsing down?\u201d\u00a0 A building collapse that killed 18 people, a random accident, a roll of the cosmic dice that led to senseless death. Jesus asks us, \u201cDo you think any of them were worse sinners than you?\u201d\u00a0 The old sinner in each of us always thinks we\u2019re innocent but others are probably just getting what they deserve.\u00a0 We wrongly think we\u2019re immune from danger, and that others probably somehow deserved it.\u00a0 But if we\u2019re honest we know God did not specially punish them, otherwise why would he have not have specially punished us?! God does not desire the death of sinners, but rather that they turn to him and live.\u00a0 But on the flip side, does it make us extra special that we are still here?\u00a0 Do we have extra divine favor because we weren\u2019t hit by a bus this morning?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Jesus wants us to see how vulnerable our little life is, how short our time in this earthly life is, he warns us not to wait for big things to come to our senses, by then it\u2019s too late, but to instead see how every moment is the right time to realize we are walking in the sight of God, and to awake to the riches of his grace, and make the most of the time we have been given!<\/p>\n

Some of you remember our late church member \u201cBuzz\u201d who was killed by a car while riding his bicycle at Christmastime a number of years ago.\u00a0 The day before it happened he was here for a worship service, and asked to speak to me in private afterwards.\u00a0 Christmas was coming, and he wanted to celebrate the holiday with a clean heart, right with God and with his family.\u00a0 So he asked to confess his sins in private and receive God\u2019s promise of forgiveness, according to the service we have in the LBW<\/em>.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think Buzz knew what would happen the next morning, but he knew what Jesus said today: that now and every moment he calls you to turn from your sins and return to him, believing in the Good News.\u00a0 That now and every moment he calls and commands you to love him with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as ourselves.\u00a0 Look how fragile we all are!\u00a0 Look how lovingly and strongly God calls to you. Look at the time you don\u2019t have, and that gets shorter every second!\u00a0 So don\u2019t wait, who knows when your time will be?\u00a0 Now is the time to turn and believe, to come to your senses and come home, to turn and live, Jesus says.\u00a0 And if we don\u2019t, Jesus says, won\u2019t we ourselves perish?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Just when we\u2019re feeling some good Lutheran guilt about all this, Jesus then tells a parable: a story about his waiting, about his patience, about his love, a parable of hope.\u00a0 He tells of a landowner expecting good things from his fig tree, and his waiting for that sweet, luscious, lovely fruit, but finding none.\u00a0 \u201cGet rid of the tree, cut it down,\u201d he says!\u00a0 \u201cBut Lord,\u201d says the gardener, \u201clet it alone for one more year, let me dig around it, fertilize it, care for it, do everything I can for it.\u00a0 Next year, if it bears fruit how wonderful!\u2014but if not, then you can cut it down!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Look at that gardener.\u00a0 He knows it takes work to get something to grow!\u00a0 His first thought isn\u2019t, \u201cGet out the pruning shears, grab a chainsaw, light up the bonfire, clear out the dead wood!\u00a0 No, it\u2019s \u201cGrab the miracle grow, grab a load of manure, give me the watering can, I\u2019ll do whatever I can do for that tree.\u201d\u00a0 So the parable asks us this morning, \u201cWhat will happen to us, what will happen to you and me, the planting of the Lord, whom God calls to bear fruit: the fruit of faith he has planted within us, the fruit of love your neighbors need?\u00a0 How much more can God do for us?\u00a0 What more do you need or want that he hasn\u2019t already generously provided?\u00a0 What won\u2019t he do to grow good fruit in you?\u00a0 What is there he hasn\u2019t given, all that you need every day\u2014even his own Son, even his own life, his own body and blood, broken and shed for you?\u00a0 Like a cliffhanger, the parable leaves us in mid-air with a desperate question: Will you and I hear in time?\u00a0 Will we bear fruit, according to our callings, before our time is up? What do you think?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thanks be to God who gave his only Son for us to nourish us, fertilize us, and water us by his innocent suffering and death under Pontius Pilate, so that by his death we might live and have life eternal!\u00a0 But warning, news alert, \u201cding!\u201d: Now is the right time, before it\u2019s too late: Believe in this Good News, change your thinking and direction and return to the Loving Arms of God that already hold you close and tight.\u00a0 For He is growing in you good, sweet, delicious fruit: faith that is pleasing to God, and love that is useful for your suffering neighbor.<\/p>\n

And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills<\/p>\n

New Haven, Connecticut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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